Follow your passion

I started this blog in 2014 as a way to memorialize my wine and food adventures.  As time went on, the blog revolved around other passions of mine - my plant-based lifestyle challenge and my spiritual journey.  Six years later, I realize even more why I named it what I did because it truly is a representation of my self and those simple pleasures that matter to me in life.

Ever since I moved to the Outer Banks, my wine consumption has decreased. Sad actually, but it made me realize that is because wine is meant to be an experience. When I lived in NoVA, I frequented wineries/vineyards and my favorite wine bar. It was wine that led me to those places but it was the environment and the people who kept me there. Since moving, I don't have those luxuries any longer. There is a local wine bar but it does not feel like home and no matter how hard I try, it just isn't where I belong. I am grateful for my friends at the Salt Box Cafe who hold wine dinners in the off season, and while those events are absolutely fantastic, it truthfully makes me long for those days gone by at my hometown "happy place". So many memories there - it's where I first began my wine journey and where I met so many strangers who became long lost friends before the night was over.  Even though I don't see them every week now, I still connect with them. If it weren't for wine, we would have never met.  There are no coincidences in life, my friends. 

I didn't always like wine. In fact, I despised it! My ex-husband's family loved wine and would always put a glass at my seat at the dinner table. Even though they were persistent for almost seven years, I would always decline. Over time, I admit, I started declining just to spite them. The mother was a functioning alcoholic and the father drank to tolerate his wife and to pat himself on the back of his worldly knowledge. The sister was a lush and wine was an escape from her sad reality. The rest of the family hung on to their European roots and up went their pinkies and self-perceived sophistication when the wine was imbibed.  I wanted no parts of any of this facade.

Fast forward six years, after my divorce from this family, when I was in a relationship with a very kind soul who loved wine and took the time to teach me about wine instead of shoving it down my throat. What a concept! Those next four years, along with meeting my happy place family, opened up an entire new world to me. Becoming a wine club member of Winestyles of Montclair, I tasted up to eight wines a week and began to understand not only what I liked and did not like but why I felt that way.  Soon enough, I was able to decipher wines that I would enjoy simply by knowing where the wine was from or what grapes were used. Weekend trips to vineyards and tasting rooms in Prince William, Stafford, Fauquier and Loudoun counties led to beautiful landscapes, lovely people, and a lifetime of memories all with wine as the common denominator. 

Over time, I began to teach others about wine and encourage them to make wine tasting an experience.  Wine changes based on food pairings; even something as simple as a piece of cheese or chocolate.  I often joke because friends and family would (and still do) moan because I would always ask them "What do you smell" and would make them answer before I let them even take a sip. Of course, immediately following the first sip, I would then ask, "What do you taste" and wait for an answer. The best part? There are no right or wrong answers. I wanted my friends and family to broaden their awareness and really experience the wine and appreciate what they were consuming. If you are drinking wine (or anything for that matter) to get drunk, you're not doing it right. 

My background and two degrees are in public administration - local government. I know local government but I lost my passion for public service once I personally started seeing the politics and selfishness (and way too often, the narcissism) that was in control.  At that point, I felt as if I was stuck because I was already 10-12 years in. It was a career at that point and I did not want to start over. But it became "just a job" after a while and I have never been one to just "go through the motions". I hate to say it but I lost myself along the way and, unfortuately, it became a very vicious downard spiral.  Little did I know though, it would all make sense more than ten years later. 

By the time 2014 came around and my now husband said we should move to the beach, I was more than willing to give it all up and start over. Yes, even at 41 years old!  I sold my house, quit my 18-year long career without anything in the pipeline and moved four hours away from the only home and family I had ever known. 

When I took it upon myself to request a part-time job at a local wine bar and was given the opportunity, I was super excited but it was short lived. After a few weeks, dusting bottles and playing cashier while being treated like the dirt on the bottom of someone's shoe was not really what I had in mind. Knowing I did not NEED this job but was hopeful to work in the wine industry, I was quick to kick this nonsense to the curb. Moving to the beach was to better my life and this was not going to work. 

I, then, found a sweet gig at an an association for a local neighborhood development where my administrative skills could easily be put to use a few days during the week..(In fact, that is where I met the owner of the Salt Box before I had ever even stepped foot in that incredible establisment! Again, everything happens for a reason.)  New doors were opened for me not even a month later when I interviewed and was offered a full-time County government job.  I was over local government but it was all I had ever known and it would give me a salary as well as health insurance (which I greatly needed as we were not married yet). It didn't take long for me to realize that the public sector here is no different than that from which I came. The short honeymoon phase was "sweet" but I soon had equal headaches, more examples of "what not to do" and "how not to treat people," another brush with narcissism and favortism, incompetency and lack of giving a damn running wild and all at a salary that was cut by $60k. The redeeming part - quite a few friendships that I made and will keep for the duration of my life, which made every bit of the roller coaster worth it.  Just shy of three years, I got married, quit my job and truly renewed and got a new lease on life. 

So now what was I going to do? Anything I wanted. No more holds on me. No more self-imprisonment. I would enjoy being a wife and a dog mom and I would do something I have yearned to do for at least six years - volunteer with Hospice. I have only had one patient so far thanks to Covid but that one patient made a huge impact on my life in just two short months. Without a doubt, I knew this was a passion of mine that would never burn out - love in service. I also began to focus on my spiritual and energy work which I aboslutely thrive off of and delved into it head first. Reaching so many people through love and comfort and healing is what I am meant to do here in this temporary life. 

Then seven months later, a new part-time job found me. I say it found me because I wasn't looking at all. In fact, I decided that when it was time it would happen and I had turned it over to a higher power and allowed things to just flow. I have been performing wine tastings for a local vineyard for almost a month now and after 46 years on this Earth, I finally have a job that I enjoy. Why? Because I get to serve and talk about wine while promoting a business run by a family I respect. I get to meet people from all over the country and make them smile. Most who come to see me are already happy because they are on vacation and I just add a tiny bit more joy for them. 

I have learned and absorbed so much about wine since 2007 that now I am able to share that with others. Wine is not just for drinking and tasting. Wine is for sharing, for comparing, for learning, for great conversation, for relaxing, for laughing, for unwinding, for letting your true self shine. Wine is the making of memories. Wine should be seen as an experience every time a drop is poured or a bottle is opened.

I am not a wine expert but I have always prided myself on my stellar customer service skills. This job is as much about engaging people, making them feel special, making them smile and making them know they matter as it is about pouring wine samples. This job is all about putting the customer first and giving them an experience where they leave happier than when they arrived.  Our wine isn't for everyone but I am confident that there is something on the tasting that every customer will like by the time it is over. If not, at least they didn't waste 20 minutes of their life - we conversed, we laughed, we learned and we raised the vibration if only for a little while. And that, is completely worth every drop.

 

So, thank you, Brown family, for trying to shove wine down my throat all those years ago. Thank you for being an example of what I do not want to be. Thank you for teaching me how not to treat others. 

Thank you, Michael, for sharing your wine tips, knowledge, patience and grace with me for those special years we shared. I look back and smile every time I share something about wine I learned from you and see that light them up as you did me.

Thank you, Kim, for introducing me to my happy place so many years ago as we shared a pizzette and bottle of Jam Jar for the first time.

Thank you, Arthur, for teaching me the value of a "wine experience" every time I stepped through your establishment. Thank you also for becoming a lifelong friend to me and my parents and always making your restaurant and wine bar like home to us. Thank you for my "happy place". It and you have truly changed my life in so many ways. 

Thank you, Kenny, for being a chauvinstic ass and allowing me to experience how not to treat an employee or run a business. 

Thank you, John and Brooke, for trusting me and taking a chance on this girl who loves wine and people and allowing her to represent your wines on your behalf. 

Wine is more than fermented grape juice to me. It is more than alcohol in a bottle with a pretty label. Wine is a hug in a glass. Wine is a memory in a bottle. Wine takes me back to moments in time - moments that made me laugh so hard I cried and moments that equally stopped me from crying.  Wine is an experience and I am so grateful to be returning to that passion of mine.